


Of Car Keys and Thanks

by ThaliaClio



Series: Demons and Playmates [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Psych
Genre: "Thank You"s, Alternate Universe, Drunk Tony, Everything I write has pineapple in it, First Meetings, He's cool, Pineapples, Pre-Iron Man 1, Shawn would approve, Shawn's a bartender, Ted is Shawn's boss, Tony used to drink, pre-series for psych
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 21:36:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThaliaClio/pseuds/ThaliaClio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony drinks like a teenager. Shawn is a liar. Alternatively titled "Limos Are Not Taxis".</p><p>We are all searching for someone whose demons play well with ours. - Unknown</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Car Keys and Thanks

**Author's Note:**

> Because I am incapable of writing things in chronological order, I have to keep reordering this series. Oops. Really, though, they're all stand-alones -- but you should read them all anyway!

_Having Tony Stark seen at your bar is good for business_ , Ted reminded himself for the twelfth time that night. It was fast becoming his mantra.

In the long term, he knew the publicity would pay off. The bar wouldn’t be in the red for years, if ever. But right now, in the short term, Tony Stark was wading through bottle after bottle of the good stuff, getting louder and louder and rowdier and rowdier. Thirty-five years old, and the man still drank like a college kid. Held his liquor like one, too.

The night wore on, and eventually even the paparazzi got tired of the drunken billionaire’s increasingly irrelevant ramblings. Protons and donuts and gamma rays and flying cars and silk ties and absinthe and nuclear power and nothing was connected or made a lick of sense to anybody but the drunk.

“It’s a good thing he’s here tonight,” Shawn muttered in his ear.

Ted grunted and kept wiping the bar from Stark’s most recent spill. “Good for business.”

Shawn shook his head, smiling a little bit.

Shawn was a new for hire, only been working for two weeks, but Ted liked him. People bought drink after drink just to spend a few more minutes bullshittin’ with the guy, trying to pick him up, but he never, never left with one that was married. And he never let the drunks drive - he’d buy them a cab himself if he had to. Ted appreciated both those things.

Ted wasn’t entirely sure what had possessed him to hire the kid, though. Because he was just that – a kid. Halfway to twenty, but claiming twenty-two. Ted told himself that it wasn’t like the kid ever drank anything himself, but the law was the law and Ted was breaking it. But Ted liked him. So the kid was hired off the books, and Ted never managed to catch a last name.

“I mean it’s good he’s here instead of at home. Drunken engineering is as likely to end with an explosion as an innovation.”

Ted blinked at the younger man. Shawn was smart – brilliant – but even in the two weeks Ted had known him, was prone to the ridiculous and the risky. The flaming cocktail incident – while hilarious – did not need to be mentioned ever again. There was still a scorch mark on the ceiling.

Ted just shook his head and turned back to wiping down the bar, only half listening to Stark.

“—think ‘s time ta go,” he slurred, wobbling dangerously as he rose from the barstool, giggling a little when he caught himself on the counter. “Party’s comin’ wi’ me.”

Stark fumbled in his suit pockets, and Ted froze. “Where’re m’ keys?”

Ted never let his patrons drive home drunk. Made sure his bartenders didn’t either. But stopping Tony Stark?

“Safe and sound with my pet pineapple back here,” Shawn said.

Ted’s head snapped around to his bartender, while Stark’s followed a little slower. Stark squinted at the younger man, trying to focus his vision.

“Gimmee.”

“Nope,” the kid replied, popping the ‘p’.

“ ‘s my car,” Stark shot back, leaning heavily on the counter now. “ ‘n how’d you get m’ keys, anyways?”

“Telekinesis.”

Ted realized he’d stopped wiping the bar.

“I’ll sue you; y’stole m’car,” Stark slurred.

Ted’s heart sped up a little bit. Stark was drunk, he knew, and should in no way be on the road, but he was _Tony Stark_. People didn’t tell _Tony Stark_ no – not with his pack of lawyers.

“Shawn—“ Ted started, reaching up to grab the bartender’s bicep.

“Already called you a ride, buddy,” the kid ignored his boss, smiling at Stark instead. “The special prom kind, with disco balls and booze in the back and a sunroof on top.”

Stark squinted some more. “Limo?”

“Limo,” the kid agreed. “The king of taxis.”

“ ‘s not a taxi,” Stark pouted a little.

“I’ve heard it both ways.”

“A’right.”

Ted might have been hallucinating. Drunken, destructive billionaire _Tony Stark_ was sitting docile at his bar waiting on a limo after one of his employees stole his keys.

Fifteen minutes later and Tony Stark was gone, poured into the backseat of a black limousine by his pick-pocket bartender, half asleep and more incoherent than coherent.

Thirty minutes later and the bar was closed.

An hour later and everyone but the kid and Ted had gone home for the night (morning).

Ted finished up finances for the night (best night they’d had in years) and then turned and sighed. The kid just leaned against the bar, arms loose at his sides, smiling just a little bit like he knew exactly what Ted was going to say. Hell, maybe he did.

“Tony Stark?” Ted prompted, wiping down the bar for the last time.

“He was here earlier,” the kid said agreeably.

“His keys,” Ted said more firmly.

“Are in his pocket, exactly where he left them.”

Ted stopped and squinted at is bartender. The kid shrugged, but elaborated.

“He was drunk – I wasn’t gonna let him drive home. So I told him I pocketed his keys. Didn’t touch ‘em, but he didn’t know that. If he remembers tonight at all, he’ll figure that out come noon. Maybe three, depending on his hangover cure.”

Ted huffed out a laugh and rubbed his beard. “Kid, you’re going to get me sued one of these days.”

He smiled ruefully, wiping his hands on his black slacks as he leaned up off the bar. “Is that my hint?”

Ted sighed a little. This hadn’t been his intention at the start of the conversation, but it was the logical conclusion. But he liked him. “Not if you don’t take it that way.”

The kid’s smile was a bit more genuine now, but he shook his head. “No, Ted, I think it’s time for me to head out. Don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

He got a handshake and a hug before the kid walk out of the bar, first and last paycheck in hand.

And that’s the last time Ted saw Shawn Spencer, too young and too smart and too restless to be tending a bar. He still gets postcards, sometimes, though. No name, no address, just a picture of a limousine on the front and a recipe for a pineapple cocktail on the back.

__

A week after the kid – Shawn – left, Ted got a phone call from the last man he’d expected.

_“Hello, yeah, this is Tony Stark. I assume you remember me? From last week?”_

Ted nodded for a second, a little dumbstruck, before he remembered it was a phone call and Stark couldn’t see him. “Yeah, I ‘member you.”

_Sigh. “Look, I called to… thank you. For stopping me from driving.”_

If Ted was a little dumbstruck before, he was dumb _founded_ then. The silence stretched for a moment before he managed to speak. “That was actually on of m’ bartenders. Shawn.”

 _“Oh. (Half laugh). I don’t remember much, I guess.”_ (Ted’s surprised he remembered the name of the bar at all.) _“Can I... thank him? Personally?”_

Ted huffed out a laugh of his own. “Shawn quit last week. Same night you came by.”

Pause.

Ted let himself feel a little bit of vindictive joy in the silence. There was a part of him, the part that came from a rundown apartment with a working mother and no father and pipes that leaked that would always, always feel a little bit of anger, a little bit of jealousy towards men like Stark.

_“Was it my fault?”_

Pause.

“No,” Ted finally answered, a little wary of the seemingly genuine regret in the man’s voice. “Kid’s a drifter. He left of his own choice.”

_“Oh. Well, um… Thanks anyway, I guess. You have my number if you see him again.”_

Ted already knew he would never use that number but said – “I’ll do that.”

_Click._

The only sound was Ted’s breathing as he set the phone back into its cradle. Dimly he registered that the white plastic was cracked and stained and that he should probably replace it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the mostly empty top shelf bourbon that Stark had swam his way through the week before. On the bottom there was a pineapple sticker.

And dammit if he didn’t miss the kid already. Kept things interesting, at least.

**Author's Note:**

> Review, folks. I need the feedback.


End file.
